A version of this story first appeared in the 2025 issue of Method Magazine, a publication of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga College of Arts and Sciences.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Department of Theatre is introducing a new multi-disciplinary film and TV studies minor. The minor will allow students to explore all aspects of film and television from in front of and behind the camera.
Working with the communication, English, and Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures departments, the new minor—coming in the 2025-26 academic year—will give students a flexible path that suits their interests in film and TV.
Steve Ray, head of the Department of Theatre, artistic director of the UTC Theatre Co. and coordinator of the theatre entrepreneurship concentration, is looking forward to this minor filling an area many students wish to pursue.
“A lot of students are already making their own films, short films and video projects,” Ray said. “It gives them a way to learn more about how to do that better but also get credit for some of those projects.”
Ray highlighted UTC theatre professors who have worked in the film and TV industry, explaining why students should be enthusiastic about the new minor.
“One of the things that should make them excited is this incredible group of local professionals and local film professors,” he said. “They have national reputations.
“(Faculty members include) well-known actors in the industry and some directors who have moved here.”
Dylan Kussman and Anthony Sims both teach Introduction to Film at UTC and have been working as actors, directors and producers. Kussman has acted in major Hollywood movies like “Dead Poets Society” and “The Mummy.” Sims directed a short film called “The Day After Stonewall Died,” which won the Cannes Short Film Festival in 2014.
Ray highlighted the three aspects students need to cover in this minor: theory, production and historical context. Incorporating these areas will give students a thorough understanding of the industry.
“They have to have components of all three of those areas,” Ray explained. “They have to have some theory, including Intro to Film. They have to have production experience mostly through the communication department and they have to have historical context and cultural context classes.”
UC Foundation Associate Professor of Communication Charlene Simmons served as the interim head of the department during the process of developing the new minor. She mentioned that the team focused on making this minor flexible for students “so it would meet a lot of different people’s interests.”
“We had a debate. ‘Do we require that they take a production class?’ We decided no,” Simmons recalled. “Not every student is going to want to make a film or TV. Some are simply going to want to do criticism. They’re going to want to be able to read a text.
“On the flip side, we think everybody needs to have an understanding of film at the level of Introduction to Film. To be able to make films or television, you also need to understand the theoretical side. You need to have that critique or criticism background.”
Communication Lecturer Angelique Gibson teaches production classes and is excited about what this minor can provide for UTC students.
“Any student who’s going to do something interdisciplinary is going to have a wider view—a more multi-varied approach to how they’re able to tell stories or integrate in different parts of their career when they get out of here,” Gibson said. “When a student graduates with a film and television minor, the way that we’ve built it, they’ve gotten a chance to understand how the world works by having to take a world film class.
“They understand the history of film by taking that theatre class. If they get a chance to take a production class, they start to put all those pieces together, including whatever they’ve learned in their major—in order to tell a story using the paintbrushes they’ve been taught how to use.”
Gibson added that students have clamored for this type of minor during her seven years at UTC. She is thrilled to see it come to fruition.
“We’re connected all throughout the University,” she said, “and the students wanted it. There’s no reason not to give it to them.”
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Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures
